Macuna - Religion and Expressive Culture

Religious Beliefs.
According to the Macuna, the world and everything in it were created by
four godlike mythical heroes (Ayawa mesa) and the Ancestral Mother of
all people, referred to as the Woman Shaman (Romi Cumu). The sexual
union between the mythical heroes and the Ancestral Mother gave birth to
the first clan ancestors. The mythical heroes are manifest today in
thunder and lightning, whereas the Ancestral Mother is alternatively
conceived of as a star constellation (the Pleiades) or the earth itself.
The celestial bodies—sun, moon, and stars—play a
significant role in mythology. The mythical heroes and first clan
ancestors are mystically represented by the yurupari instruments that
are brought forth and played during the most important of Macuna
rituals. According to myth, the Woman Shaman owned the primordial
yurupari instruments. These were later stolen from her by the mythical
heroes, who thus established the present social order of male supremacy.
The clan ancestors were believed to have the form of huge anacondas,
which transformed into people. The Macuna think of all animals as
sharing certain fundamental spiritual properties with people; animals
once were and still are—in another mode of
perception—people. Hence, interaction with the animal world is
guided by the same fundamental principles of reciprocity that guide
human social interaction. Traditional religion is still vigorous and
continues to be practiced.

Religious Practitioners.
The important religious functionaries are the shaman (
cumu/yai
), the chanter (
yuam
), and the ritual dancer (
baya).
Their presence is necessary at every collective religious ritual. The
shaman mediates between people and the spiritual beings. There are
shamans who specialize exclusively in managing the relations between
this world and the spirit world of ancestors and mythical beings. Other
shamans are fundamentally healers; it is their duty to cure afflicted
people. The chanter is the "voice" of the shaman. Whereas
the services of the shaman are required continuously, the
chanter's role is essentially limited to ritual performances. The
chanter ceremoniously recounts the mythical creation story, which is
dramatically reenacted during the major dance rituals. The dancer is the
lead dancer during all collective rituals. Today only men hold these
important ritual offices, but it is said that in the past there were
several female shamans.

Ceremonies.
The Macuna have a rich ritual life. The major stages in the
individual's life cycle—birth, initiation, and
death—are accompanied by ritual acts. Perhaps the major Macuna
ritual is the male initiation rite—a collective, public, and
large-scale ritual during which the ancient yurupari instruments are
shown to the initiates. Other major communal rituals are the exchange
ritual (referred to as
dabucurí
in the literature), at which smoked meat, fish, and forest fruits are
exchanged between affinally related groups, and the spectacular spirit
dance (
baile de muñeco
), which is held during the harvest season of the
chontaduro
-palm fruit. During this dance, men and male children wear masks and
bark-cloth costumes representing 100 or so different animal spirits and
mythical beings. Throughout the year, other communal-dance rituals are
held, during which the male dancers wear ceremonial headdresses of macaw
feathers and the down, plumes, hairs, and bones of other animals.

During the rituals, only ceremonial foods are consumed: coca, tobacco,
locally brewed beer, and occasionally the hallucinogenic drug
yage.
All these communal rituals dramatize and symbolically reenact mythical
events related to the creation of the world and the people inhabiting
it; the ancestral beings are brought back to life, represented by the
dancers, and the maloca turns into mythical space, the cosmos itself.

Arts.
Macuna art is fundamentally embodied in their crafts, architecture, and
ceremonial property. Body painting and decoration of ceremonial regalia
are basically geometrical. These arts are fundamentally structured by
collective tradition but leave room for individual creativity. Pottery
is undecorated, and there are no sculptured or graphic representations
of deities. In the Macuna territory, there are ancient petroglyphs
elaborated by those to whom the Macuna refer as "ancestral
people."

Medicine.
A characteristic feature of the Macuna, distinguishing them from many
other Tucanoan groups, is that they utilize no plant medicines.
Prevention and healing of illness basically involve the practice of
blowing and silent chanting over foods, drinks, or certain magical
substances. These acts of blowing and chanting can be performed by any
knowledgeable adult man. Certain serious afflictions are treated by
curing shamans (
yaia
; lit., "jaguars") who suck out the disease agent (usually
a dart) or remove it by pouring blessed water over the patient. The
Macuna disease etiology centers on food as the fundamental disease
agent. All food is considered inherently dangerous; it has to be blessed
by blowing before eaten. Most diseases are believed to be caused by
eating food that has not been properly blessed.

Death and Afterlife.
At death, the soul is believed to wander off to the sky world or down
into the underworld and finally, on the earth, settle in the ancestral
birth house ("peoples' waking-up house") of its
clan. The Macuna believe that, at birth, the soul of a deceased
grandparent enters the newborn baby, who receives the name of its soul
giver; there thus exists among the Macuna a belief in the reincarnation
of souls in alternate generations. The funerary ritual, like the birth
ritual, is essentially a private ceremony. The body of the deceased is
buried in the longhouse. The grave consists of a deep hole with a cave
on one side, where the corpse is placed. After the burial, the shaman
burns bees' wax in the house. The smoke is said to carry away the
soul of the dead. The ritual is referred to as the "throwing away
of sorrow."